In 1949, New Statesman challenged its readers to parody the style of any novelist named Green or Greene. Under a pseudonym, Graham Greene submitted a parody of himself:

The child had an air of taking everything in and giving nothing away. At the Rome airport he was led across the tarmac by his aunt, but he seemed to hear nothing of her advice to himself or of the information she produced for the air hostess. He was too busy with his eyes: the hangars had his attention, every lane on the field except his own — that could wait.

‘My nephew,’ she said, ‘yes, that’s him on the list. Roger Court. You will look after him, won’t you? He’s never been quite on his own before,’ but when she made that statement the child’s eyes moved back plane by plane with what looked like contempt, back to the large breasts and the fat legs and the over-responsible mouth: how could she have known, he might have been thinking, how often I am alone?

He came in second.

Steampunk NYC!

Who would think that the oldest continuously-operating, privately owned steam-powered electrical generating plant in the United States sits in a quiet Victorian section of Brooklyn, New York?

Pratt University still has its original steam-powered engine room. Chandelier included!

And every year on New Year's Eve the caretaker sets up all of the large steam whistles outside. Where passersby get to pull the ropes and create a cacophony to ring in the new year!

For this and more steampunk goodness visit the Steampunk Workshop here...

ExtInked: Tattoos to save the world

How far would you go to help save an endangered animal? How about allowing someone to jab ink into your skin with tiny needles, 150 times a second?

That's exactly what hundreds of volunteers signed up for last weekend at ExtInked, where people came from far and wide to have one of Britain's most endangered species permanently tattooed on their body, making them a life long ambassador for that species.

ExtInked is the brainchild of the Ultimate Holding Company, a Manchester-based arts collective. Each volunteer filled out an application explaining why they deserved to be the canvas for their chosen flora or fauna. Of the hundreds that turned up, 100 were chosen and, over the course of the weekend, 100 original tattoos were carefully inked onto shoulders, calves, backs and hip bones by artists from the local studio Ink vs Steel.

Read more here